1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable device equipped with a digital camera for capturing still and moving images and, in particular, to a camera device built in a portable device such as a portable/mobile telephone or a portable terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been proposed several portable terminals which are equipped with two CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) cameras to capture both the scenery a user just sees and the face of the user.
Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2001-169166 discloses a portable terminal having a first CCD camera provided in a hinge portion and a second CCD camera provided on the front surface of a display-equipped housing that is rotatably coupled with a keypad-equipped housing.
Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 10-108152 discloses a foldable terminal having two CCD cameras each rotatably supported at the right and left upper end portions of a display-equipped housing.
However, in the above prior arts, the captured images by the CCD cameras are processed by a microprocessor of the portable terminal. More specifically, the captured images are stored in a memory and then combined to produce an image in which the user's face image is superimposed on the scenery image. Accordingly, the load on the microprocessor is increased and further an increased number of signal wires is needed to electrically connect the cameras to the microprocessor.